A criminal court has sentenced a man to one year in jail and ordered him to pay up compensation to the tune of QR200,000 to a young woman for distributing her objectionable photographs to some of his friends, relatives and neighbours.
The convict was additionally charged with sexually harassing and kidnapping the victim. But the court acquitted him of these charges.
The presiding judge, Mamoun Hamour, also declined the plea of the plaintiff that she be paid damages to the tune of QR1m since the convict’s act had caused immense harm to her reputation.
The judge, though, accepted her plea but reduced the compensation amount to QR200,000. The incident occurred in 2007. The convict, who is related to the plaintiff, told her one day that he had some family problems which he wanted to discuss with her.
The woman agreed, albeit with some reluctance, to hear him out, but when in private, he made some indirect passes, showing what his real intentions were in seeking a meeting with her.
He took her photographs using his camera-fitted mobile phone handset but when the woman objected, he assured her that he would soon be deleting these images.
However, instead of deleting the pictures, he forwarded them to a number of people, including some of his friends, relatives and neighbors.
The victim got to know of it and furious as she was, she lodged a police complaint. The man was taken into custody and questioned. After it was confirmed that he was indeed responsible for the act, the matter was referred to the criminal court.
The lawyer of the victim pleaded with the court that he be punished severely for carrying out the defamatory act, as per the provisions of the Shariah law.
The court, however, taking a serious view of the offense, jailed him for a year and asked him to pay up QR200,00 in damages.
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